Trans Day of Visibility 2021 – A week of celebrating our communities

After a year of lockdowns and restrictions that have particularly affected trans and gender diverse communities across the world, we want to use Trans Day of Visibility (TDoV) to focus on the resiliency of our communities, to highlight the achievements of our communities, and to shine a light for the way forward over the coming years.

This year, we are celebrating TDoV over the course of a week, because the efforts of our communities cannot be summarised in a single day! Follow our social media, or visit this webpage each day next week, which we will update with materials for you to share to spread the word about the incredible work that our communities are doing, as well as guidance on what we can all do to advocate for our human rights.

Grant Proposal Toolkit and Training

In order to combat some of the issues facing trans organizations applying for funding, GATE has created a Grant Proposal Training that is free to access!

Check out this short video from GATE’s Director of Programs on how this training works and how you can take part:

Find out more about how to support trans movements by contacting GATE at info@gate.ngo.

Background

In 2017, American Jewish World Service – AJWS, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and GATE released a report on the funding situation facing trans organizations around the world, which found that only 6% of trans groups received funding from their national governments, with more than 30% of trans groups told by donors that their issues were not a funding priority.

Find out more by reading The State of Trans Organizing Report.

Increasing Trans Community Engagement in the Global HIV Response

Historically, the trans community has been undermined in the global HIV response, despite trans people being involved since the beginning of the epidemic.

Over the past 4 years, GATE has worked in partnership with national organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southern Africa and Asia-Pacific to develop numerous resources for trans communities to increase their engagement in the global HIV response.

These resources include:

• Monitoring and Oversight Tool and Training Guide for HIV programming
• Guidelines for Integration of Trans Communities in the HIV response
• TRANSIT Smart Guide on implementing trans-inclusive HIV programs – in partnership with IRGT
• The Meaningful Inclusion of Civil Society in Global AIDS Monitoring
• The Sustainable Development Goals and Trans Engagement

To find out more about the trans-led response globally to HIV, check out this playlist:

How to Be A Trans Ally!

Over the past few years, there has been a growing backlash against trans and gender diverse people across the globe. These anti-trans voices are doing everything to erase the human rights of trans people. We need our allies to stand with us and amplify our voices to drown out those who would rather see trans people die than obtain basic human rights and equality.

So what can you do? Check out our guide on how to be a trans ally!

How to be a trans ally in 5 steps:

1. Support trans and gender diverse communities in advocating for trans healthcare access.
2. Support reforms to legal gender recognition laws towards self-determination.
3. Support trans-led services and research, and disaggregate HIV and other research to ensure accurate data representation of trans communities.
4. Partner with trans-led organizations to enable them to obtain funding and train their staff to become financially autonomous, or better yet, fund trans organizations directly!
5. Counter the anti-gender movements by vocally and visibly supporting trans rights, trans activists, trans organizations and trans-led human rights movements.

Support trans depathologization!

On May 25th 2019, after more than a decade of trans advocacy, the WHO removed trans and gender diverse identities from the list of mental health disorders. Despite this tremendous achievement, too many countries still pathologize trans people, and the past 2 years have seen an increase in the backlash against the progress that the trans movement has made toward achieving equality.

Now, more than ever, we need to advocate for trans people’s human rights. In particular, we need allies to stand alongside trans and gender diverse activists and support trans-led actions at all levels of political mobilization:

• Read GATE’s Gender is not an Illness report to find out why pathologizing trans and gender diverse people goes against human rights.
• Ask your national Ministry of Health about their pathway to implementing the new information on trans and gender diverse issues provided by the World Health Organization in the ICD-11.
• Engage with the process on Universal Healthcare Coverage and demand the full inclusion of gender affirming procedures.
• Document and report abuses against trans and gender diverse people in healthcare settings and collect and share best practices in addressing and dismantling them.
• Support the victims of pathologizing practices, and defend their right to truth, to rehabilitation and to reparations.

Advocating for Trans Rights at the UN

Over the past ten years, trans and gender diversity issues have been addressed increasingly at the United Nations. Trans and gender diverse activists from around the world have met in Geneva for Trans Advocacy Week (TAW) and have worked collaboratively to introduce “gender identity”, “gender expression” and depathologization as key issues in the international human rights system, and to include trans and gender diverse people in the UN’s responses to poverty, gender-based violence, torture and all forms of stigma, discrimination and violence.

So what can you do RIGHT NOW to engage with the UN on trans and gender diverse issues?

• Engage with the Mandate of the Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Visit their website, learn more about their work, and tell them what is going on in your country.
• Read the Yogyakarta Principles and the Yogyakarta Principles+10 and find out what international human rights law says about legal gender recognition, access to healthcare, protection against medical abuses, the right to truth and the right to be protected from poverty.
• Contact your country’s Mission at the UN in New York and Geneva and ask them to support trans and gender diverse issues within the international human rights system.
• Check out these amazing opportunities to learn more about the UN, and apply!
  • Akahatá’s Taller Virtual
  • Columbia’s Human Rights Advocate Program
  • ISHR’s Academy
  • Outright’s OUTSummit
  • RFSL’s Rainbow Academy
• Find out about previous Trans Advocacy Weeks and be prepared to engage with Trans Advocacy Week 2021 – information coming soon!